Israel to draw boundaries map

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32565, 26 March 1971, Page 9

Israel to draw boundaries map

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, March 25. Israel had promised to furnish a map showing what final boundaries it wants written into a Middle East peace settlement, informed sources said yesterday.

The Israeli Government now is working on the map and once it is complete the United States hopes to use it to advance the Middle East peace talks under United Nations special envoy, Dr Gunnar Jarring. The Secretary of State (Mr William Rogers) asked for the map during his talks with the Israeli Foreign Minister (Mr Abba Eban) last Friday, the sources disclosed. The United States request came after Israel’s rejection, in effect, of Dr Jarring’s call for a pledge to the principle of withdrawal from Arab territory occupied in the June, 1967, six-day war. In view of the impasse in the Jarring talks, the State Department is seeking a more

positive Israeli reply to the United Nations envoy than the one it submitted last month. This said that Israel would not go back to the pre-1967 armistice lines. But it did not say how far Israel was willing to withdraw from the cease-fire line along the Suez Canal. Since then the Israeli Prime Minister (Mrs Golda Meir) and Mr Eban have publicly outlined some of the major Israeli territorial requirements. These include retention of, or control over, Sharm el Sheik, the point overlooking Israel’s access to the Red Sea; undefined portions of the West Bank of the River Jordan; and the Golan Heights in Syria.